lopez was a very good fighter. a great fighter. he was at a much smaller weight class than the others, though, where great fighters don't often fight and stick around for entire careers. frankly, at those weights, the fighters are not that good. once guys hit 118 lbs or so you start to see real athletic specimens regularly at the top.

there have been great athletes and fighters at 105/108, but they're few and far between. lopez could easily be higher on some people's lists than morales and barrera, depending on whether or not they discount his accomplishments based on the perennial weakness of his division

sanchez is also an odd case. he's got some big wins, but he died at 23, giving him an aura of invincibility. we have never seen him on the downside, the way we saw everybody else. his win over gomez is one of the biggest wins ever for a mexican fighter.

i'd really like to see marquez career end first. he just knocked out manny pacquiao. it's hard to rate that win at this stage. it just happened.

if manny takes a tune up fight and loses it will reduce the weight of marquez win. and if marquez goes on to get destroyed we'll know that it didn't take a great fighter to stop manny at the tail end of his career.